The China Bride: The mythical story retold of the marriage of a Ming Princess to the Sultan of Melaka in 1474

According to Malay legend, Mansur Shah, the fifth Sultan of Melaka, took as his fifth wife a Princess of the Imperial Court of Ming China. And, as would be fitting, she was said to have arrived in the sultanate complete with a retinue of some 500 hand-picked youths, each one young and beautiful and of noble blood.The Melaka sultanate at the time was at the peak of its power and to the maximum extent of its empire. It was, by all accounts, a rollicking place with a vibrant polyglot community, refined and cultured nobility and a great deal of exuberance in its customs and celebrations. This period is seen as something of a Golden Age of Malay nationality, and so the legend of the Sultan's bride is a strongly embraced part of the national folklore.'The China Bride' takes the backdrop of actual events that struck the Melakan Empire in that period (mid to late 1400s) and explores what could had happened if the Sultan's fifth wife had indeed been a Ming Princess.As told in the Serhaja Melayo, Ming practice would dictate that she would be accompanied by a full household of attendants, companions and functionaries and protected by a dedicated force of military guards, with the expectation that they would establish a Chinese style palace suitable for a royal princess - and that the marriage would produce a Chinese Heir to the Melakan empire.But they had failed to take into account the nature and politics of the community they were going to, and quickly found themselves separated and absorbed into the community. Before long, there was trouble.But meanwhile, the princess Li-poh had been installed in the Sultan's compound and to their mutual joy, produced a prince - the Paduka Mimat. Would he be named heir? Could he be?As recorded in the Serhaja Melayu, a series of disasters strikes the Sultan's compound making this a significant question. However, issues in the town were coming to a head, cruel-ling the chances of the young Paduka and leading to the exile of the Princess. On his deathbed, the Sultan names his son by the daughter of the hereditary prime minister, then a child, to succeed him.

Author: Amanda Nairn
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 05/03/2019
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.29lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.89d
ISBN: 9781096712657

This title is not returnable